


of late nights and kept secrets

by lavender_tea_writes



Series: Parkner Week 2019 [5]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mentions of Outing, Mentions of Violence, mentions of sexual assault and rape
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-06
Updated: 2019-08-06
Packaged: 2020-08-11 09:14:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20151211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lavender_tea_writes/pseuds/lavender_tea_writes
Summary: “Tell me a secret.” Harley whispered, breaking the comfortable quiet.“You already know my biggest secret, Harls.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, “I’m Spider-Man, remember?”Harley scoffed, “Okay, I'll give you that. But I don’t want to know something about Spider-Man, I want to know about you. What’s something you’ve never told anyone in your life, Peter Parker?”ORPeter and Harley lay awake at night. They share their secrets.





	of late nights and kept secrets

**Author's Note:**

> Parkner week 2019 day 5: Secret confessions
> 
> THIS FIC HAS TRIGGER WARNINGS FOR MENTIONS OF VIOLENCE, RAPE AND SEXUAL ASSAULT, AND FORCED OUTING. Please do not read if mentions or descriptions of these topics are triggering for you! 
> 
> this ended up wayyyy heavier than I anticipated . also yeah this is a day late what about it

It was one of the rare days where both Pepper and Tony were out of town for the night and Harley and Peter were left to their own devices until they got back. The boys were staying with the Starks for the summer, Peter because his Aunt May was traveling, and Harley because he needed to get out of Rose Hill. 

Since they met at the beginning of the summer, the boys had been close. Since the first week of Harley being there, he knew Peter was Spider-Man. Since the second week, they had been together. Tony didn’t know, but Pepper probably did. She tended to notice the things Tony was too oblivious to pick up on. 

Being alone on the Stark’s floor of the tower meant that there were no adults to make them sleep in their own rooms. Or sleep at all, for that matter. Pepper generally forced them into bed around 1 AM, because she knew that if they got into the habit of not sleeping for days at a time while they were young, they would end up like Tony. Not even she could make Tony sleep. 

So there they were, in Harley’s room at 3 AM, just lying there and enjoying the moments of each other's company. Laying with Peter lying mostly on top of Halrey, his head resting on his boyfriend’s shoulder. Harley ran his fingers through Peter’s soft, dark curls. The room had been silent for the past half an hour save for their intertwining heartbeats. 

“Tell me a secret.” Harley whispered, breaking the comfortable quiet.

“You already know my biggest secret, Harls.” He lowered his voice to a whisper, “I’m Spider-Man, remember?”

Harley scoffed, “Okay, I'll give you that. But I don’t want to know something about Spider-Man, I want to know about  _ you _ . What’s something you’ve never told anyone in your life, Peter Parker?”

Peter remained quiet for a moment, pondering. With the exception of being Spider-Man, Peter wasn’t really one to keep secrets. He told Ned and May basically everything. But there was one thing he had never voiced to them, in fear of their reaction, “I still blame myself for my Uncle Ben’s death.”

Harley tensed under Peter, “Oh babe, I was thinking you would say something like ‘I once took a shit in a cat’s litter box’, oh my god  _ Peter _ ,” He cleared his throat, “Can I ask what happened?”

“We were running out to Delmar’s for dinner one night, and they got held up. Mr. Delmar cooperated, and let them take the money and go. But I had a fancy watch that my Uncle Ben has given to me when I turned 10, and they saw it and took that too. I got upset, and went after them. He tried to hold me back but couldn’t and one of the nuggets tried to shoot me and they show him instead and I watched him bleed out on the sidewalk.”

Harley held him tighter, rubbing his thumb along the small of Peter’s back, “Oh darlin’” He said, not knowing how to comfort him. After a moment of silence, he continued, “Peter, love, that’s not your fault. You didn’t shoot him, the damn thieves did. He was just trying to protect you.” 

“But I was being stupid, and he shouldn’t have had to-“

“But he did, sugar, and that was his decision. He wouldn’t regret it , I know he wouldn’t because he loved you. And now you get to go on and live your life and you use it to save other people because you’re so good. He would be proud of you, baby, not blame you.”

"I still don’t- I don’t want to talk about this anymore. Your turn.”

“Ok,” Harley thought for a moment, “It’s not really a huge secret, but no one up here knows it. When I was 15 or 16 I started dating this guy back in Rose Hill, his name was Derek. We were both in the closet, because it’s a southern town and coming out is kinda dangerous. But one day, we were making out in my room, and he filmed us in secret so that his face wasn’t visible but the fact that he was a guy definitely was, and released the video and sent it to some people at school. Eventually it got sent around, and I went to school and suddenly I was being called slurs and shoved around and beat on.”

“You got outed?” Peter whispered, shifting his head to look up at his boyfriend, “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s alright now, I’m over it. Just sucks that that’s how my mom had to find out, you know?” 

“Yeah,” Peter sighed, “There’s something else I want to tell you, but I’m not really sure how to say it.”

“Ok,” Harley said, “take your time. or you don’t need to tell me now, darlin’, you can figure it out later. Whenever you’re ready.” Peter nodded against Harley’s chest, but remained silent for a few moments. 

His voice wavered when he finally spoke, “I was sexually assaulted when I was 12.”

Harley sat up in shock, “What?”

Peter took a deep breath, and continued on a low whisper, “When I was 12 I had this tutor named Skip. He was 19, and in college. May and Ben hired him because I was starting to do science stuff for fun that they couldn’t do, and they wanted me to be able to keep learning at a higher level. I basically just did his homework with him. For the first few weeks he was really nice and stuff, you know? Like a normal tutor should be. But then he started sitting really close to me, and putting his hand on my thigh and stuff. I thought it was kinda weird but didn’t think much of it because I’d seen girls do it with each other, so it was fine when two guy friends were doing it too, right? Well a couple of months after he started tutoring me he invited me to work in his apartment instead of the library so he could show me some of the experimental stuff he couldn’t bring to the library.” Peter let out a stiff laugh, “It was not the kind of experimental stuff I was expecting.”

“Peter, baby, I’m so sorry,” Harley pulled him in and kissed his forehead, cradling the boy in his arms. Tears were streaming down both of their faces, “I’m so sorry sugar.”

“I mean he didn’t do anything really bad, he didn’t rape me or anything, he just touched me over my clothes and tried to kiss me, and I told May and Ben and they reported it to the police but nothing really came of it because we could prove that anything happened.”

“That’s horrible, baby, I’m so sorry. You’re so strong, Peter.”

“I thought,” Peter sniffled, “For a long time I thought I was kidding myself that I was bi because of what Skip had done to me. I thought he had fucked me up. It took so long for me to accept it because I thought I was just fucked up and it was horrible.”

“I did too. In Rose Hill, people used gay and the f slur as standard insults all the time and went to a church for the first six years of my life where they preached that being gay was a sin. When I started basing attracted to boys I didn’t know what to do and I isolated myself so that no one would find out. I didn’t fully accept myself until I was 15 and saw Tony’s pride month post with the pansexual flag and realized that it could be normal.”

“At least we got here now, right? We have each other, we’ve accepted our sexualities, come to terms with our bullshit. We can be happy now, yeah.” 

Harley lay a light kiss on Peter’s lips, “Yeah, sugar, I think we can.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and Kudos feed my hungry soul and keep me motivated to write for the rest of Parkner Week!


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